le  Art  of  Life  Series 


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By  Scott   Nearing 


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The  Super  Race 


THE    ART    OF    LIFE    SERIES 

Edward     Howard      Griggs,     Editor 

The    Super    Race 


AN  AMERICAN  PROBLEM 


fr-'^  ySt> 


BY 
SCOTT  NEARING,  Ph.D. 

WHARTON  SCHOOL,    UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 
AUTHOR  OF  "SOCIAL  ADJUSTMENT,"  ETC. 


'--'«; 


NEW  YORK 

B.    W.    HTJ^BSCHv 

1919 


Copyrig-ht,  1912,  by 
B    W.  HUEBSCH 


First  printing,    May,    1912 
Second  printing,  May,  1919 


PRINTED  IN  U.  S.  A. 


TO    THE 

MOTHERS   AND   FATHERS 

OF    THE 

SUPER    RACE 


FOREWORD 

For  ages  men  have  sought  to  perpetu- 
ate their  memories  in  enduring  monuments 
of  brass  and  of  stone.  Yet,  in  their  efforts 
to  build  lasting  memorials  they  have  neg- 
lected the  most  endliring  monument  of  all 
—  the  Monument  of  Posterity.  These 
farseeing  ones  have  overlooked  their 
real  opportunity ;  for  in  posterity  —  in  the 
achievements  of  their  children's  children, 
men  may  best  hope  to  reflect  a  lasting 
greatness. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    The  Call  of  the  Super  Race  .     .     13 
II    Eugenics — ^The  Science  of  Race 

Culture 26 

III  Social  Adjustment — The  Science 

of  Molding  Institutions     .     .     44 

IV  Education — ^The  Science  of  Indi- 

vidual Development  ....     55 
V    The  American  Opportunity  .     .     75 


The  Super  Race 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  CALL  OF  THE  SUPER  RACE 

As  a  very  small  boy,  I  distinctly  remem- 
ber that  stories  of  the  discovery  of  Amer- 
ica and  Australia,  of  the  exploration  of 
Central  Africa  and  of  the  invention  of  the 
locomotive,  the  steamboat,  and  the  tele- 
graph made  a  deep  impression  on  my 
childish  mind;  and  I  shall  never  forget  go- 
ing one  day  to  my  mother  and  saying : — 

"  Oh,  dear,  I  wish  I  had  been  born  be- 
fore everything  was  discovered  and  in- 
vented. Now,  there  is  nothing  left  for 
me  to  do." 

Brooding  over  it,  and  wondering  why  it 
should  be  so,  my  boyish  soul  felt  deeply 
the  tragedy  of  being  born  into  an  unevent- 
ful age.  I  fully  believed  that  the  great 
achievements  of  the  world  were  in  the 
past.     Imagine  then  my  joy  when,  in  the 


14  The  Super  Race 

course  of  my  later  studies,  It  slowly  dawned 
upon  me  that  the  age  in  which  I  lived  was, 
after  all,  an  age  of  unparalleled  activity. 
I  saw  the  much  vaunted  discoveries  and 
inventions  of  by-gone  days  in  their  true 
proportions.  They  no  longer  preempted 
the  whole  world  —  present  and  future,  as 
well  as  past,  but,  freed  from  romance,  they 
ranged  themselves  in  the  form  of  a  foun- 
dation upon  which  the  structure  of  civili- 
zation is  building.  The  successive  steps 
in  human  achievement,  from  the  use  of 
fire  to  the  harnessing  of  electricity,  consti- 
tuted a  process  of  evolution  creating 
"  a  stage  where  every  man  must  play 
his  part  " —  a  part  expanding  and  broad- 
ening with  each  succeeding  generation;  and 
I  saw  that  I  had  a  place  among  the  actors 
in  this  play  of  progress.  The  forward 
steps  of  the  past  need  not,  and  would  not 
prevent  me  from  achieving  in  the  present 
—  nay,  they  might  even  make  a  place,  if 
I  could  but  find  it,  for  my  feet;  they  might 
hold  up  my  hands,  and  place  within  my 
grasp  the  keen  tools  with  which  I  should 
do  my  work. 

The  school  boy,  passing  from  an  atti- 


The  Super  Race  15 

tude  of  contemplation  and  wonder  before 
the  things  of  the  past  into  an  attitude  of 
active  recognition  of  the  necessities  of  the 
present,  passed  through  the  evolutionary 
process  of  the  race.  The  savage,  Sir 
Henry  Maine  tells  us,  lives  in  a  state  of  ab- 
ject fear,  bound  hand  and  foot  by  the  say- 
ings and  doings  of  his  ancestors  and 
blinded  by  the  terrors  of  nature.  The 
lightning  flashes,  and  the  untutored  mind, 
trembling,  bows  before  the  wrath  of  a  jeal- 
ous God;  the  harvest  fails,  and  the  savage 
humbly  submits  to  the  vengeance  of  an 
incensed  deity;  pestilence  destroys  the  peo- 
ple, and  the  primitive  man  sees  in  this 
catastrophe  a  punishment  inflicted  on  him 
for  his  failure  to  propitiate  an  exacting 
spirit  —  in  these  and  a  thousand  other 
ways  uncivilized  peoples  accept  the  phe- 
nomena in  which  nature  displays  her 
power,  as  the  expressed  will  of  an  omnipo- 
tent being.  One  course  alone  is  open  to 
them ;  they  must  bow  down  before  the  un- 
known, accepting  as  inevitable  those  forces 
which  they  neither  can  understand  nor 
conquer. 

Civilization    has    meant    enlightenment 


1 6  The  Super  Race 

and  achievement.  In  lightning,  Franklin 
saw  a  potent  giant  which  he  enslaved  for 
the  service  of  man;  in  famine,  Burbank 
discovered  a  lack  of  proper  adjustment  be- 
tween the  soil  and  the  crops  that  men  were 
cultivating  —  thereupon  he  produced  a 
wheat  that  would  thrive  on  an  annual  rain- 
fall of  twelve  inches;  in  pestilence,  Pasteur 
recognized  the  ravages  of  an  organism 
which  he  prepared  to  study  and  destroy. 
Lightning,  famine  and  pestilence  are,  to 
the  primitive  man,  the  threatening  of  a 
wrathful  god;  but  to  the  progressive 
thinker  they  are  merely  forces  which  must 
be  utilized  or  counteracted  in  the  work  of 
human  achievement. 

As  a  boy,  I  believed  my  opportunities 
to  be  limited  by  the  achievements  of  the 
past.  As  a  man,  I  see  in  these  past 
achievements  not  hindrances,  but  the  foun- 
dation stones  which  the  past  has  laid  down, 
upon  which  the  present  must  build,  in  or- 
der that  the  future  may  erect  the  per- 
fected structure  of  a  higher  civilization. 
I  see  all  of  this  clearly,  and  I  see  one 
thing  more.  In  the  old  days  which  I  had 
erstwhile  envied,  one  event  of  world  im- 


The  Super  Race  17 

port  might  have  been  chronicled  for  each 
decade,  but  in  the  nineteenth  andi  twentieth 
centuries,  such  an  event  may  be  chronicled 
for  each  year,  or  month  or  even  for  each 
day.  The  achievements  of  the  past  were 
noteworthy:  these  of  the  present  are  stu- 
pendous. 

The  process  of  social  evolution  reveals 
itself  in  these  progressive  steps.  Because 
the  past  has  built,  the  present  is  building 
—  building  in  order  that  the  future  may 
stand  higher  in  its  realization  of  potential 
life.  The  past  was  an  age  of  uncertain, 
hesitating  advance.  The  present,  an  age 
of  dynamic  achievement,  leads  on  into  the 
future  of  human  development. 

In  the  twentieth  century: 

1.  Knowledge  provides  a  basis  for 

activity. 

2.  The  social  atmosphere  palpitates 

with    enthusiastic   resolve    and 
abounds  in  noble  endeavor. 

3.  There  is  work  for  each  one  to 

perform. 

The  despondent  boy  has  thus  evolved 


iB  The  Super  Race 

into  the  enthusiastic  worker  whose  watch- 
word is  "  Forward!  " —  forward  towards 
a  new  goal,  whose  very  existence  is  made 
attainable  through  the  achievements  of  the 
past:  a  goal  before  which  the  triumphs  of 
bygone  ages  pale  into  insignificance. 

The  past  worked  with  things.  Pyra- 
mids were  built,  cities  constructed,  moun- 
tains tunneled,  trade  augmented,  fortunes 
amassed.  Hear  Ruskin's  comment  on 
this  devotion  to  material  wealth:  *'  Never- 
theless, it  is  open,  I  repeat,  to  serious  ques- 
tion, ....  whether,  among  na- 
tional manufactures,  that  of  souls  of  a  good 
quality  may  not  at  last  turn  out  a  quite  lu- 
crative one.  Nay,  in  some  far-away  and 
yet  undreamed  of  hour,  I  can  even  imagine 
that  England  ...  as  a  Christian 
mother,  may  at  last  attain  to  the  virtues 
and  the  treasures  of  a  heathen  one,  and  be 
able  to  lead  forth  her  sons,  saying: 
*  These  are  my  jewels.'  "  ^ 

The  past  worked  with  things:  the  fu- 
ture, rising  higher  in  the  scale  of  civiliza- 
tion, must  work  with  men  —  with  the  plas- 

iJOHN  RusKiN,  Unto  this  Last — Essay  11. 


The  Super  Race  19 

tic,  living  clay  of  humanity.  As  Solomon 
long  ago  said,  **  He  that  ruleth  his  own 
spirit  is  greater  than  he  that  taketh  a  city." 
The  men  of  the  past  built  cities  and  took 
them.  They  brought  the  forces  of  nature 
into  subjection  and  remodeled  the  world 
as  a  living  place  for  humanity,  yet,  save 
for  a  shadow  in  Rome  and  an  echo  from 
Greece,  there  is  scarcely  a  trace  in  history 
of  a  consistent  attempt  to  evolve  nobler 
imen. 

Material  objects  have  cost  the  nations 
untold  effort,  but  human  fiber  — the  life 
blood  of  nations  —  has  been  overlooked 
or  forgotten.  The  world  Is  weary  of  this 
emphasis  on  things  and  this  forgetfulness 
of  men;  the  ether  trembles  with  the  clamor 
for  manhood.  The  fields,  white  to  har- 
vest, are  awaiting  the  laborers  who,  build- 
ing on  the  discoveries  and  inventions  of 
things  in  the  past,  will  so  mold  the  hu- 
man clay  of  the  present  that  the  future 
may  boast  a  society  of  men  and  women 
possessing  the  qualities  of  the  Super  Race. 

What  is  a  Super  Race  ?  Nothing  more 
nor  less  than  a  race  representing,  in  the  ag- 
gregate, the  qualities  of  the  Super  Man  — 


20  The  Super  Race 

the  qualities  which  enable  one  possessing 
them  to  live  what  Herbert  Spencer  de- 
scribed so  luminously  as  a  "  complete  life/' 
namely, — 

1.  Physical  normality. 

2.  Mental  capacity. 

4.  Concentration 

3.  Aggressiveness 

5.  Sympathy. 

6.  Vision. 

These  characteristics  of  the  Super  Man 
express  themselves  in  his  activity : 


1.  Physical  normality  provides  energy. 

2.  Mental  capacity  gives  mental  grasp, 

"i.  Aggressiveness.)         .,  ^  . 

^  ^^        ^      .        y  produce  emciency. 

4.  Concentration,  j  ^  -' 

5.  Sympathy  leads   to  harmony  with 

things  and  cooperation  with  men. 

6.  Vision  shows  itself  in  ideals. 


The  energy  to  do;  and  the  mental  grasp 
to  appreciate;  together  with  the  capacity 
to  choose  efficiently,  furnish  the  basis  for 
achievement.     Achievement,    however,    is 


The  Super  Race  4i 

not  in  Itself  a  guarantee  of  worth  unless 
its  course  is  shaped  by  sympathy  and  di- 
rected toward  a  goal  which  is  determined 
by  the  prophetic  power  of  vision.  Such 
are  the  characteristics  which,  combined  in 
one  individual,  insure  completeness  of  life. 
About  them,  philosophers  have  reasoned 
and  poets  have  sung.  They  are  the  acme 
of  human  perfection- — the  ideal  of  indi- 
vidual attainment. 

Though  they  have  been  thus  idealized, 
these  qualities  are  not  new.  They  have 
existed  for  ages,  as  they  exist  to-day,  oc- 
casionally combined  in  one  individual  but 
usually  appearing  separately  in  members 
of  the  social  group.  They  form  part  of 
the  heritage  of  the  human  race,  and  in 
spite  of  neglect  and  lack  of  fostering,  they 
are  widespread  in  all  sections  of  the  popu- 
lation. The  production  of  a  race  of  men 
and  women,  a  great  majority  of  whom 
shall  possess  these  qualities,  will  mean  the 
next  great  step  in  human  achievement. 

The  Super  Man  has  lived  for  ages. 
The  Greeks  traced  the  descent  of  their 
heroes  and  heroines  —  their  Super  Men 
*—  from  the  Gods.     It  was  thus  that  they 


22  Whe  Super  Race 

explained  exceptional  ability.  Exceptional 
men  live  to-day,  as  they  did  in  ancient 
Greece,  directing  the  thought  and  work 
of  the  times.  They  possess  the  qualities 
of  the  Super  Man  —  physical  normality, 
mental  capacity,  aggressiveness,  concentra- 
tion, sympathy  and  vision ;  and,  above  all, 
we  now  understand  that  they  are  not  the 
offspring  of  the  gods,  but  the  sons  of  men 
and  women  whose  combined  parental  qual- 
ities inevitably  produced  Super  Men. 
The  Super  Man  is  not  a  theory,  nor  an 
accident,  but  a  natural  product  of  natural 
conditions. 

Though  the  Super  Man  may  be  met 
with  occasionally  in  modern  society,  and 
though  the  qualities  ascribed  to  him  are 
manifest  everywhere  among  those  who 
have  had  an  opportunity  for  their  devel- 
opment; opinions  still  differ  as  to  the  pos- 
sibility of  producing  a  Super  Race.  An 
even  greater  difference  of  opinion  is  en- 
countered when  an  attempt  is  made  to  for- 
mulate the  means  which  should  be  adopted 
to  secure  such  an  end;  yet  there  can  be 
little  difference  of  o^plnion  as  to  the  de- 
sirability, from  a  national  as  well  as  from 


The  Super  Race  23 

an  individual  standpoint,  of  creating  a  race 
of  Super  Men. 

The  call  of  the  present  age  for  a  Super 
Race  Is  thus  voiced  by  Yeats,^ 

**  O  Silver  Trumpets!     Be  you  lifted  up, 
And  cry  to  the  great  race  that  is  to  come. 
Long  throated  swans,  amid  the  Waves  of  Time, 
Sing  loudly,  for  beyond  the  wall  of  the  World 
It  waits,  and  it  may  hear  and  come  to  us." 

We  long  for  the  coming  of  the  Super 
Race.  We  aim  toward  this  goal.  Can 
it  be  compassed  in  finite  time?  Is 
Nietzsche  right  when  he  says, — **  I  teach 
you  beyond-man."  *'  All  beings  hitherto 
have  created  something  beyond  them- 
selves." **  What  is  great  in  man  is  that 
he  is  a  bridge  and  not  a  goal."  '*  Not 
whence  ye  come,  be  your  honor  in  the  fu- 
ture, but  whither  ye  go !  "  **  In  your  chil- 
dren ye  shall  make  amends  for  being  your 
father's  children.  Thus  ye  shall  redeem 
all  that  is  past."  ^ 

2V^iLLiAM  B.  Yeats,  Poetic  Works,  Vol.  II,  p.  407. 
Macmillan  Co.,  N.  Y. 

3  Frederick  Nietzsche,  Thus  Spoke  Zarathustra,  pp. 
5-296.     Macmillan  Co.,  N.  Y. 


24  The  Super  Race 

Shall  we  make  amends  to  the  future? 
Come,  then,  let  us  reason  together  con- 
cerning the  measures  which  must  be 
adopted  to  raise  the  standard  of  succeed- 
ing generations.  There  are  three  means 
which  lie  ready  at  hand:  three  sciences 
which  lend  themselves  to  our  task:  three 
tools  with  which  we  may  shape  the  Super 
Race.     They  are: 

1.  Eugenics — ^The  science  of  race 

culture. 

2.  Social  adjustment  —  The  science 

of  molding  institutions. 

3.  Education  —  The  science  of  in- 

dividual development. 

The  science  of  Eugenics  treats  of  those 
forces  which,  through  the  biologic  proc- 
esses of  heredity,  may  be  relied  upon  to 
provide  the  inherited  qualities  of  the  Su- 
per Race.  The  science  of  Social  Adjust- 
ment treats  of  those  forces  which,  through 
the  modification  of  social  institutions,  may 
be  relied  upon  to  provide  a  congenial  en- 
vironment for  the  Super  Race.  The  sci- 
ence of  Education  aims  to  assist  the  child 


The  Super  Race  2^ 

in  unfolding  and  developing  the  hereditary 
qualities  of  the  Super  Man,  provided, 
through  eugenic  guarantees.  Hence,  Eu- 
genics, Social  Adjustment  and  Ediucation 
are  sciences,  the  mastery  of  which  is  a 
pre-requisite  to  the  development  of  the 
Super  Race. 


CHAPTER  II 

EUGENICS  — THE  SCIENCE  OF  RACE  CUL- 
TURE. 

The  object  of  Eugenics  is  the  conscious 
improvement  of  the  human  race  by  the  ap- 
plication of  the  laws  of  heredity  to  human 
mating.  Eugenics  is  the  logical  fruition 
of  the  progress  in  biologic  science  made 
during  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  laws  of  heredity,  studied  in  minute 
detail,  have  been  applied  with  marvelous 
success  in  the  vegetable  and  animal  king- 
doms. '*  Is  there  any  good  reason,"  de- 
mands the  eugenist,  '*  why  the  formulas 
which  have  operated  to  re-combine  the 
physical  properties  of  plants  and  animals, 
should  not  in  like  measure  operate  to 
modify  the  physical  properties  of  men  and 
women?  '' 

The  studies  which  have  been  made  of 
eye  color,  length  of  arm,  head  shape,  and 
other  physical  traits  show  that  the  same 
26 


The  Super  Race  27 

laws  of  heredity  which  apply  In  the  ani- 
mal aiid  vegetable  kingdoms  apply  as  well 
In  the  kingdom  of  man.  Since  the  species 
of  plants  and  animals  with  which  man  has 
experimented  have  been  Improved  by  se- 
lective breeding,  there  seems  to  be  no  good 
reason  why  the  human  race  should  not  be 
susceptible  of  similar  Improvement.  What 
Intelligent  farmer  sows  blighted  potatoes  ? 
Where  Is  the  dog  fancier  who  would 
strive  to  rear  a  St.  Bernard  from  a  mon- 
grel dam?  Neither  yesterday  nor  yet  to- 
morrow do  men  gather  grapes  of  thorns. 
Those  who  have  to  do  with  life  In  any 
form,  aware  of  this  fact,  refuse  to  permit 
propagation  except  among  the  best  mem- 
bers of  a  species :  hence  with  each  succeed- 
ing generation  the  ox  Increases  In  size  and 
strength:  the  apple  In  color;  the  sweet 
pea  In  perfume;  and  the  horse  In  speed. 
Is  this  law  of  Improving  species  a  uni- 
versal law?  Alas,  no!  It  rarely  if  ever 
applies  In  the  selection  of  men  and  women 
for  parenthood.  The  human  species  has 
not,  during  historic  times,  Improved  either 
in  physique.  In  mental  capacity,  in  aggres- 
siveness, In  concentration,  In  sympathy  or 


28  The  Super  Race 

in  vision.  Nay,  there  are  not  wanting 
thoughtful  students  who  affirm  that  in  al- 
most every  one  of  these  respects  the  exact 
contrary  holds  true. 

There  appears  to  be  some  question  as  to 
whether  the  best  of  the  Greek  athletes  ex- 
ceeded in  strength  and  skill  the  modern 
professional  athlete,  but  there  is  no  doubt 
at  all  that  the  average  citizen  of  Athens 
was  a  more  perfect  specimen  physically 
than  the  average  citizen  of  twentieth  cen- 
tury America. 

Some  students  insist  that  the  level  of  in- 
tellectual capacity  has  been  raised,  yet  Gal- 
ton,  after  a  careful  survey  of  the  field, 
concludes  in  his  Hereditary  Genius  that 
the  average  citizen  of  Athens  was  at  least 
two  degrees  higher  in  the  scale  of  intel- 
lectual attainment  than  the  average  Eng- 
lishman; Carl  Snyder^  boldly  maintains 
thati  the  intellectual  ability  of  scientific  men 
is  less  to-day  than  it  was  in  past  centuries ; 
while  Mrs.  Martin,^  in  a  study  more  novel 


1  Carl   Snyder,    The  World  Machine,    New   York, 
Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  1907. 

2  Prestonia  MIann  Martin,  Is  Mankind  Advancing? 
New  York,  Baker  &  Taylor  Co.,  1911. 


The  Super  Race  29 

than  scientific,  insists  that  the  genius  of 
the  modern  world  is  on  a  level  distinctly 
below  that  of  the  genius  of  Greece. 

Perhaps  American  commercial  aggres- 
siveness IS  equal  to  the  military  aggressive- 
ness of  the  Romans,  the  early  Germans, 
and  the  followers  of  Attila.  We  have 
concentrated  most  of  our  efforts  upon  in- 
dustry, yet  even  here,  our  concentration 
is  no  greater  than  that  of  the  poets  of  the 
Elizabethan  era,  or  the  religious  zealots 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  Our  sympathy  with 
beauty  is  at  so  low  an  ebb  that  we  fail 
even  to  approach  the  standard  of  past 
ages.  Neither  in  art,  in  sculpture,  nor 
in  poetry  do  our  achievements  compare 
with  those  of  the  earlier  Mediterranean 
civilizations ;  while  our  knowledge  of  men 
as  revealed  in  our  literature  is  not  above 
that  of  the  Romans  or  the  Athenians.  As 
for  vision,  we  still  accept  and  strive  to 
fulfill  the  commandments  of  the  Prophet 
of  Nazareth.  In  all  of  these  fields,  twen- 
tieth century  America  is  equaled,  if  not 
outdone  by  the  past. 

Thus  the  distinctive  qualities  of  the  Su- 
per Man  appear  in  the  past  with  an  intens- 


30  The  Super  Race 

ity  equal  if  not  superior  to  that  of  the  pres- 
ent. History  records  the  transmutation 
of  vegetable  and  animal  species,  the  revo- 
lution of  industry,  the  modification  of  so- 
cial institutions,  and  the  transformation  of 
governmental  systems;  but  in  all  historic 
time,  it  afSrms  no  perceptible  improvement 
in  the  qualities  of  man.  ''  We  must  re- 
place the  man  by  the  Super  Man,"  writes 
G.  Bernard  Shaw.^  '' It  is  frightful  for 
the  citizen,  as  the  years  pass  him,  to  see 
his  own  contemporaries  so  exactly  repro- 
duced by  the  younger  generation." 

Nevertheless,  the  possibility  of  race  im- 
provement exists.  **  What  now  charac- 
terizes the  exceptionally  high  may  be  ex- 
pected eventually  to  characterize  all,  for 
that  which  the  best  human  nature  is  capa- 
ble of  is  within  the!  reach  of  human  nature 
at  large."  ^  After  years  of  intensive 
study,  Spencer  thus  confidently  expressed 
himself.  Since  he  ceased  to  work,  each 
bit  of  scientific  data  along  eugenic  lines 
serves    to    confirm    his    opinion.     Armed 

3  G.  Bernard  Shaw,  Man  arid  Super  Man,  P.  218- 
219.     N.  Y.,  Brentano's. 

^  Herbert  Spencer,  The  Data  of  Ethics,  Para.  97. 
N.  Y.,  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  1893. 


The  Super  Race  31 

with  such  a  belief  and  with  the  assurance 
which  scientific  research  has  afforded,  we 
are  preparing  in  this  eleventh  hour  to  ful- 
fill Spencer's  predictions. 

There  are  two  fields  in  which  eugenics 
may  be  applied  —  the  first,  Negative,  the 
second,  Positive.  Through  the  establish- 
ment of  Negative  Eugenics  the  unfit  will 
be  restrained  from  mating  and  perpetuat- 
ing their  unfitness  in  the  future.  Through 
Positive  Eugenics  the  fit  may  be  induced 
to  mate,  and  by  combining  their  fitness  in 
their  offspring,  to  raise  up  each  new  gen- 
eration out  of  the  flower  of  the  old.  Neg- 
ative Eugenics  eliminates  the  unfit;  Posi- 
tive Eugenics  perpetuates  the  fit. 

The  field  of  Negative  Eugenics  has  been 
well  explored.  No  question  exists  as  to 
the  transmission  through  heredity  of  feeble 
mindedness,  idiocy,  insanity  and  certain 
forms  of  criminality.  **  There  is  one  way, 
only  one  way,  out  of  this  difficulty.  Mod- 
ern society  .  .  .  must  declare  that 
there  shall  be  no  unfit  and  defective  citi- 
zens in  the  .State."  ^     The  Greeks  elimin- 

s  Saml.  Z.   Batten,   The  Redemption   of  the   Unfit, 
American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  14,  p.  242  (1909). 


32  The  Super  Race 

ated  unfitness  by  the  destruction  of  defec- 
tive children;  though  we  may  deplore  such 
a  practice  in  the  light  of  our  modern  ethical 
codes,  we  recognize  the  end  as  one  essential 
to  race  progress.  By  denying  the  right  of 
parenthood  to  any  who  have  transmissible 
disease  or  defect,  our  modern  knowledge 
enables  us  to  accomplish  the  same  end 
without  recourse  to  the  destruction  of  hu- 
man life. 

Sir  Francis  Galton,  the  founder  of  the 
science  of  Eugenics,  writes,  in  his  last  im- 
portant work,  *'  I  think  that  stern  com- 
pulsion ought  to  be  exerted  to  prevent  the 
free  propagation  of  the  stock  of  those  who 
are  seriously  afflicted  by  lunacy,  feeble- 
mindedness, habitual  criminality  and  pau- 
perism." ^  Yet  society,  in  dealing  with 
hereditary  defect,  presents  some  of  its  most 
grotesque  inconsistencies.  '*  It  is  a  curi- 
ous comment  on  the  artificiality  of  our  so- 
cial system  that  no  stigma  attaches  to  pre- 
ventable ill-health."  An  empty  purse,  or 
a  ruined  home  may  mean  social  ostracism, 
but  '*  break-down  in  person,  whatever  the 

6  Francis  Galton,  Memoirs  of  My  Life,  p.  311.    N. 
Y.,  E.  P.  Dutton,  1909. 


The  Super  Race  33 

cause,  evokes  sympathy,  subscription  and 
silence."  '^ 

Certain  defects  are  known  to  be  trans- 
missible by  heredity  from  parent  to  child, 
until  the  cretin  of  Balzac's  Country  Doctor 
is  reproduced  for  centuries.  The  remedy 
for  this  form  of  social  self-torture  lies  in 
the  denial  of  parenthood  to  those  who 
have  transmissible  defects.  Individually, 
such  a  denial  works  hardships  in  this  gen- 
eration :  socially,  and  to  the  future  genera- 
tions, it  means  comparative  freedom  from 
individual,  and  hence  from  social  defect. 

The  problem  of  Positive  Eugenics  pre- 
sents an  essentially  different  aspect.  As 
Ruskin  so  well  observes  —  *^  It  is  a  mat- 
ter of  no  final  concern,  to  any  parent, 
whether  he  shall  have  two  children  or  four  ; 
but  matter  of  quite  final  concern  whether 
those  he  has  shall  or  shall  not  deserve  to  be 
hanged."  The  quality  is  always  the  sig- 
nificant factor.  Whether  in  family  or  na^ 
tional  progress,  an  effort  must  be  made  to 
insure  against  hanging,  or  against  any 
tendency  that  leads  gallowsward. 

■^  Arnold  White,  Efficiency  and  Empire,  p.  97.    Lon- 
don, Methuen  &  Co.,   1901. 


34  The  Super  Race 

Positive  Eugenics  is  the  science  of  race 
building  through  wise  mating.  "  As  long 
as  ability  marries  ability,  a  large  propor- 
tion of  able  offspring  is  a  certainty."  ^ 
What  prospective  parent  does  not  fondly 
imagine  that  his  children  will  be  at  least 
near-great?  Yet  how  many  individuals, 
in  their  choice  of  a  mate,  set  out  with  the 
deliberate  intention  of  securing  a  life  part- 
ner whose  qualities,  when  combined  with 
his  own,  must  produce  greatness? 

The  Darwin-Galton-Wedgwood  fam- 
ilies boast  sixteen  men  of  world  fame 
in  five  generations;  in  the  Bach  family 
there  were  fifty-seven  musicians  of  note  in 
eight  generations;  Wood's  study  of  Hered- 
ity in  Royalty  shows  the  evident  transmis- 
sion of  special  ability;  yet  men  and  women 
of  ability,  anxious  for  able  offspring,  mate 
without  any  rational  effort  to  secure  the 
end  which  they  desire.  ^'  Ninety-nine  times 
out  of  a  hundred  our  mathematician  mar- 
ries a  woman  whose  family  did  not  count  a 
single  astronomer,  physicist  or  other  mathe- 
matical mind  among  its  members.     The  re- 

8  W.  C.  &  C.  D.  Whetham,  The  Family  and  the  Na- 
tions, p.  85.    N.  Y.,  Longmans,  1909. 


The  Super  Race  35 

suit  of  such  a  union  Is  what  could  be  ex- 
pected. Although  genius  does  not  gener- 
ally die  out  right  away  in  the  first  genera- 
tion, it  decreases  by  half,  and  further  dilu- 
tions soon  bring  it  down  to  nothingness."  ^ 

This,  in  brief,  is  the  problem  of  Nega- 
tive and  of  Positive  Eugenics.  Both  de- 
fect and  ability  are  transmitted  by  hered- 
ity; both  are  the  product  of  the  mating 
process  known  as  marriage;  since  society 
can  and  does  control  marriage,  it  may, 
through  this  control,  exercise  a  real  in- 
fluence upon  the  character  of  future  gen- 
erations. 

The  science  of  Eugenics  is  in  its  in- 
fancy, yet,  widely  established  and  vigor- 
ously applied,  it  may  revolutionize  the  hu- 
man species.  The  Super  Race  may  come, 
because  ''  looked  at  from  the  social  stand- 
point, we  see  how  exceptional  families,  by 
,careful  marriages,  can  within  even  a  few 
generations,  obtain  an  exceptional  stock, 
and  how  directly  this  suggests  assortative 
mating  as  a  moral  duty  for  the  highly  en- 
dowed.    On  the  other  hand,  the  excep- 

9  GusTAVE  MiCHAUD,  Shall  We  Improve  Our  Race, 
The  Popular  Science  Monthly,  Vol.  72,  p.  77   (1908). 


36  The  Super  Race 

tionally  degenerate  isolated  in  the  slums 
of  our  modern  cities  can  easily  produce 
permanent  stock  also:  a  stock  which  no 
change  of  environment  will  permanently 
elevate,  and  which  nothing  but  mixture 
with  better  blood  will  improve.  But  this 
is  an  improvement  of  the  bad  by  a  social 
waste  of  the  better.  We  do  not  want  to 
eliminate  bad  stock  by  watering  it  with 
good,  but  by  placing  it  under  conditions 
where  it  is  relatively  or  absolutely  infer- 
tile." ^« 

*' But  what  of  love?'*  wails  the  senti- 
mentalist; '*  in  your  scheme  Eugenics  out- 
weighs Cupid!"  Perhaps,  but  what  of 
it?  Cupid  has  proved  in  the  past  a  sad 
bungler,  whose  mistakes  and  failures 
grimace  from  every  page  of  our  divorce 
court  records.  Far  from  hindering  his  ac- 
tivities, however,  Eugenics  will  assist  Cu- 
pid by  bringing  together  persons  truly  con- 
genial —  hence  capable  of  an  enduring 
love.  Too  many  men  have  married  a 
natty  Easter  bonnet,  or  a  cleverly  tailored 
suit.     Too  many  women  have  fallen  a  prey 

i<>J.  A.  Thompson,  Heredity,  p.  331.    N.  Y.,  G.  P. 
Putnam's  Sons,  1908. 


The  Super  Race  37 

to  a  tempting  bank  account  or  a  pair  of 
glorious  mustachios.  Blind  Cupid  limps 
but  lamely  over  the  rugged  path  of  matri- 
monial bliss.  The  questionable  success  of 
his  best  efforts  proves  his  sure  need  of  a 
guide. 

Eugenics  represents  an  effort  to  bring 
together  those  people  who  have  comple- 
mentary qualities  and  complementary  in- 
terests; who  ^are  capable  of  maintaining 
congenial  relationships  in  the  present;  and 
creating  able  offspring  in  the  future.  Se- 
lection and  parenthood  are  the  cradle  of 
the  future.  Hence  the  individual  who,  in 
the  exercise  of  his  choice,  overlooks  their 
significance  overlooks  one  of  his  most  im- 
portant racial  responsibilities. 

Society  is  interested  in  Eugenics,  be- 
cause it  is  through  Eugeniics  that  the  hered- 
itary traits  of  thei  Super  Race  are  perpetu- 
ated and  perfected.  Eugenics,  rightly  un- 
derstood and  applied,  is  a  social  asset  of 
unexcelled  value.  How  long,  then,  shall 
our  society  continue  to  feed  on  the  husks, 
neglecting  the  grain  which  lies  everywhere 
ready  at  hand? 

Eugenics  is  indeed  one  means  of  race 


38  The  Super  Race 

salvation,  yet  what  care  do  we  take  to  per- 
fect eugenic  measures?  ^'  If  through 
sheer  chance,  some  great  mathematician  Is 
evolved  one  day  out  of  the  crowd,  the 
state  —  who  should  be  ever  on  the  watch 
for  such  events  and  whose  main  care  should 
be  to  preserve  and  increase  such  sources 
of  light,  progress  and  national  glory  — 
does  nothing  to  protect  the  man  of  genius 
against  care,  disease  or  anything  likely  to 
shorten  life  nor  to  multiply  the  splendid 
thinking  machine."  ^^  A  great  state 
must  have  for  its  component  parts  great 
men  and  women.  Did  we  truly  seek 
greatness,  how  many  measures  for  Its  at- 
tainment lie  neglected  at  our  very  doors ! 

Every  well  regulated  state  of  antiquity 
eliminated  defectives  in  the  interest  of  the 
group,  and  of  the  future.  What  more 
effective  means  of  social  preservation 
icould  be  imagined  than  some  measure 
through  whose  operation  the  defective 
classes  in  society  would  be  eliminated,  and 
the  social  structure,  bulwarked  by  stalwart 
manhood   and  womanhood,    made   proof 

11  Gust  AVE  Michaud,  Shall  We  Improve  Our  Race? 
Popular  Science  Monthly,   Vol.  72,  p.  ^^    (1908). 


The  Super  Race  39 

against  the  ravages  of  time.  How  serious 
a  thing  is  the  propagation  of  defect! 
Murder  is  a  crime,  punishable  by  death, 
yet  a  murderer  merely  eliminates  one  unit 
from  the  social  group.  The  destruction 
of  this  one  life  may  cause  sorrow;  it  may 
deprive  society  of  a  valued  member;  but 
it]  is,  after  all,  a  comparatively  insignificant 
offense.  The  perpetuation  of  hereditary 
defect  Is  infinitely  worse  than  murder. 
Consider,  for  example,  a  marriage,  sanc- 
tioned by  church  and^  state,  between  two 
persons  both  having  in  their  blood  hered- 
itary feeble-mindedness. 

Investigations  of  thousands  of  feeble- 
minded families  show  that,  in  such  a  case, 
every  one  of  the  offspring  may  be  and 
probably  will  be  feeble-minded  —  a  curse 
to  himself  and  a  burden  to  society.  Pau- 
perism, crime,  social  dependence,  vice,  all 
follow  in  the  train  of  mental  defect,  and 
the  mentally  defective  parents  hand  on  for 
untold  generations  their  taint  —  some- 
times In  more,  sometimes  in  less  virulent 
form,  but  always  bringing  Into  the  world 
beings  not  only  incapable  of  caring  for 
themselves,  but  fatally  capable  of  handing 


40  The  Super  Race 

on  their  defect  to  the  future.  The  mur- 
derer robs  society;  the  mentally  defective 
parent  curses  society,  both  in  the  present 
and  in  the  future,  with  the  taint  of  degen- 
eracy. The  murderer  takes  away  a  life; 
but  the  feeble-minded  parent  passes  on  to 
the  future  the  seeds  of  racial  decay. 

The  first  step  in  Eugenics  progress  — 
the  elimination  of  defect  by  preventing  the 
procreation  of  defectives  —  is  easily  stated, 
and  may  be  almost  as  easily  attained. 
The  price  of  six  battleships  ($50,600,000) 
would  probably  provide  homes  for  all  of 
the  seriously  defective  men,  women  and 
^children  now  at  large  in  the  United  States. 
Thus  could  the  scum  of  society  be  removed, 
and  a  source  of  social  contamination  be 
effectively  regulated.  Yet  with  tens  of 
thousands  of  defectives,  freely  propagat- 
ing their  kind,  we  continue  to  build  battle- 
ships, fondly  believing  that  rifled  cannon 
and  steel  armor  plate  will  prove  sufficient 
for  national  defense. 

This  is  but  a  part,  and  by  far  the  least 
important  part,  of  the  eugenic  programme. 
The  elimination  of  defect  prevents  degen- 
eracy, but  does  not  insure  the  physical  nor- 


The  Super  Race  41 

mality,  mental  capacity,  aggressiveness, 
concentration,  sympathy  and  vision  of  the 
Super  Man.  While  the  elimination  of  de- 
fect is  imperative,  it  is  after  all  only  the 
first  step  toward  the  creation  of  positive 
qualities. 

Positive  Eugenics  may  be  as  obvious  as 
Negative  Eugenics,  but  the  promulgation 
of  its  doctrines  is  not  equally  easy.  A 
series  of  legislative  enactments  will  pre- 
vent the  mating  of  the  hereditarily  defec- 
tive; nothing  but  the  most  painstaking  edu- 
cation can  be  relied  upon  to  secure  the 
mating  of  those  eugenically  fit  Never- 
theless for  that  modern  state  which  seeks 
to  persist  and  dominate,  no  lesser  measure 
will  suffice.  After  all,  why  should  not  so- 
ciety educate  its  youth  to  a  sense  of  wis- 
dom in  mating?  The  United  States 
spends  each  year  some  four  hundred  mil- 
lions of  dollars  in  public  edtication,  teach- 
ing children  to  read,  to  spell,  to  sew,  to 
draw.  The  importance  of  these  studies  is 
obvious,  yet,  from  a  social  standpoint,  they 
cannot  compare  in  significance  with  such 
training  in  the  laws  of  heredity  and  biol- 
ogy as  will  insure  wise  choice  in  mating. 


42  The  Super  Race 

The  state,  in  its  efforts  at  self  preservation, 
cannot  lay  too  much  emphasis  on  the  train- 
ing for  eugenic  choice. 

Biology,  through  the  laws  of  heredity, 
applied  in  the  science  of  Eugenics,  holds 
out  every  hope  for  the  coming  of  the  Su- 
per Man  and  of  the  Super  Race.  Not  in 
our  knowledge  of  its  laws,  but  in  the  prac- 
tice of  its  precepts,  are  we  lacking. 

Eugenics,  it  is  true,  in  its  negative  and! 
positive  phases,  holds  out  a  greatj  hope  for 
the  future.  But  Eugenics  alone  will  not 
suffice.  The  science  of  Eugenics  must  be 
coupled  with  the  science  of  Social  Adjust- 
ment to  insure  the  production  of  a  Super 
Race.  The  necessity  of  this  union  is  well 
recognized  by  the  students  of  heredity, 
while  the  students  of  Social  Adjustment 
found  their  theories  on  premises  essentially 
biologic  in  origin.  One  of  the  most  widely 
known  writers  on  heredity  concludes  a  re- 
cent book  with  the  statement  that  — ''  At 
present,  we  can  only  indicate  that  the  fu- 
ture of  our  race  depends  on  Eugenics  (in 
some  form  or  other) ,  combined  with  the 
simultaneous  evolution  of  eutechnics  and 
eutopias.     'Brave  words,'  of  course;  but 


The  Super  Race  43 

surely  not  *  Eutopian  ' !  "  ^^  Xhus  the 
knowledge  and  practice  of  the  laws  of 
heredity  must  be  supplemented  by  a  knowl- 
edge and  practice  of  the  laws  of  Social 
Adjustment. 

12  J.  Arthur  Thompson,  Heredity,  p.  308.    N.  Y., 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  1908. 


CHAPTER  III 

SOCIAL   ADJUSTMENT THE    SCIENCE    OF 

MOLDING   INSTITUTIONS 

After  a  gardener  has  produced  his  seed, 
guaranteeing  a  good  heredity  by  breeding 
together  those  individual  plants  which  pos- 
sess in  the  highest  degree  the  qualities  he 
desires  to  secure,  he  turns  his  atten- 
tion to  the  seed  bed.  First  of  all,  the  lo- 
cation must  be  good  —  the  bed  must  be  on 
a  southern  slope,  where  it  will  benefit  by 
the  first  warm  rays  of  the  spring  sun;  then 
the  soil  must  be  finely  pulverized,  in  order 
that  the  tiny  rootlets  may  easily  force  their 
way  downward,  finding  nourishment  ready 
at  hand;  when  the  seeds  have  been  planted, 
in  gix)und  well  prepared  and  fertilized, 
they  must  be  watered,  cultivated,  weeded; 
and  as  they  develop  into  larger  plants, 
thinned,  transplanted,  pruned  and  sprayed. 
The  wise  gardener  considers  environment 
as  well  as  heredity.  By  sowing  choice 
44 


The  Super  Race  45 

seeds  in  well  prepared  soil,  he  ensures  the 
excellence  of  his  crop. 

Modern  society  may  well  be  compared 
to  a  garden.  The  plants  are  living,  mov- 
ing beings,  with  some  freedom  to  act 
on  their  own  initiative.  Moreover,  it  is 
they  who  make  and  tend  the  gardens  in 
which  they  grow.  Like  the  gardener  in 
the  story,  they  must  look  to  environment 
as  well  as^  to  heredity.  The  seed  bed 
must  be  carefully  prepared,  and  the  young 
plants,  as  they  appear,  must  be  given  all 
the  attention  which  science  makes  possible. 
Modern  society  is  a  garden  of  which  the 
products  are  men  and  women.  The  sow- 
ing, weeding,  cultivating  —  carried  for- 
ward through  social  institutions  —  deter- 
mines by  its  character  whether  the  race 
shall  decay,  as  other  races  have  done,  or 
progress  toward  the  Super  Man. 

This  science  of  social  gardening  —  So- 
cial Adjustment  —  has  been  given  a  great 
impetus,  in  recent  years,  by  the  increased 
knowledge  of  the  relative  influences  of 
heredity  and  environment  in  determining 
the  status  of  the  individual.  This  knowl- 
edge has  led  us  to  a  belief  in  men. 


46  The  Super  Race 

Earlier  beliefs  conceived  of  the  majority 
of  men  as  utterly  depraved.  Some  indeed 
were  among  the  elect,  but  the  remainder, 
born  to  the  lowest  depths  of  the  social 
gehenna,  were  outcasts  and  pariahs,  help- 
less in  this  world  and  hopeless  in  the  next. 
This  doctrine  of  total  depravity  set  at 
nought  all  progressive  effort.  Here 
stands  a  man  —  society  has  called  him  a 
criminal.  Last  year  he  attempted  to  steal 
an  automobile,  less  than  three  weeks  after 
his  release  from  serving  a  two-year  sen- 
tence for  grand  larceny.  To-day  he  is  in 
court  again,  charged  with  entering  a  lodg- 
ing house  and  stealing  three  pairs  of 
trousers  and  an  overcoat.  The  man  is  on 
trial  for  burglary* — what  shall  be  the  so- 
cial verdict  regarding  him? 

'*  Alas,"  mourns  the  advocate  of  total 
depravity,  *'  God  so  made  him.  It  is  not 
our  right  to  interfere." 

"  Wait,"  says  the  social  scientist,  '*  until 
I  investigate  the  case." 

The  case  is  held  over  while  the  scientist 
imakes  his  investigation.  After  careful 
inquiry,  he  reports  that  the  young  man's 
criminal  record  began  at  the  age  of  nine, 


The  Super  Race  47 

when  he  was  arrested  for  stealing  bananas 
from  a  freight  car.  Locked  up  with  older 
criminals,  he  soon  learned  their  tricks. 
He  was  V  nimble "  and  could  *'  handle 
himself,"  so  his  prison  mates  taught  him 
the  science  of  pocket  picking,  and  initiated 
him  into  the  gentle  art  of  '*  shop  lifting." 
Hel  was  released,  after  two  months  of  this 
schooling,  and  slipping  out  into  the  big, 
black  city,  he  tried  an  experiment.  Suc- 
ceeding, he  tried  again,  and  yet  again. 
Before  the  month  was  out,  he  was  de- 
tected stealing  a  silk  handkerchief,  and  was 
back  in  prison.  There  his  education  wasi. 
perfected,  and  he  entered  the  world  to  try 
once  more.  From  the  world  to  jail,  from 
jail  to  the  world  —  this  boy's  life  history 
from  the  age  of  nine,  had  been  one  long  at- 
tempt to  learn  his  trade;  fortunately  or  un- 
fortunately, he  was  somewhat  of  a  bungler, 
and  sooner  or  later  he  was  always  caught. 
When  he  was  a  boy,  he  sneaked  up  a 
dingy  court,  and  three  pairs  of  dirty  stairs 
to  a  landing  where,  in  the  rear  of  a  bat- 
tered tenement,  was  an  abode  which  he 
had  been  taught  to  call  home.  His  father, 
a  dock  laborer,  earned,  on  the  average, 


48  The  Super  Race 

about  $300  a  year.  Sometimes  he  worked 
steadily,  day  and  night,  for  a  week,  and 
earned  $25  or  $30;  then  there  would  be 
no  work  for  ten  days  or  perhaps  two 
weeks ;  the  money  would  run  out ;  the  gro- 
cer would  refuse  credit;  and  the  family 
would  be  hungry.  It  was  during  one  of 
these  hungry  intervals  that  the  nine-year- 
old  urchin  made  his  descent  on  the  bananas 
in  the  freight  car,  and  received  his  first 
jail  sentence. 

His  mother,  good  hearted  but  woefully 
ignorant,  made  the  best  of  things,  taking 
in!  washing,  doing  odd  jobs  here  and  there, 
tending  to  her  children,  when  opportunity 
offered,  and  at  other  times  letting  them 
run  the  streets. 

*'  There,"  concludes  the  social  scientist, 
''  is  the  story  of  that  boy's  life.  His  only 
picture  of  manhood  is  an  inefficient  father 
who  cannot  earn  enough  to  support  his 
family;  his  concept  of  a  mother  expresses 
itself  in  good  hearted  ignorance;  his  view 
of  society  has  been  secured  from  the  rear 
of  a  shabby  tenement,  the  curb  of  a  nar- 
row street  and  a  cell  in  the  county  jail. 
The  seed  bed  has  been  neither  prepared, 


The  Super  Race  49 

watered,  nor  tended,  and  the  young  shoot 
has  grown  wild." 

The  social  scientist  has  not  been  content 
with  an  analysis  of  social  maladjustment; 
going  further,  he  has  transplanted  the 
young  shoots  from  the  defective  seed  bed 
to  better  ground.  Dr.  Bernardo  organ- 
ized a  system  for  taking  the  boy  criminals 
out  of  the  slums  of  English  cities,  and 
sending  them  to  farms  in  Australia,  South 
Africa  and  Canada.  Nearly  50,000  boys 
have  been  thus  disposed  of.  Though  in 
their  home  cities  many  of  them  had  already 
entered  a  criminal  life,  in  their  new  sur- 
roundings less  than  two  per  cent,  of  them 
showed  any  tendency  to  revert  to  their 
former  criminal  practices.  A  little  tend- 
ing and  transplanting  into  a  congenial  en- 
vironment, proved  the  salvation  of  these 
boys,  who  would  otherwise  have  thronged 
the  jails  of  England. 

Careful  analysis  has  convinced  the  so- 
cial scientist  that,  in  the  absence  of  mal- 
formation of  the  brain,  or  of  some  other 
physical  defect,  the  average  man  is  largely 
made  by  his  environment.  As  serious 
physical  defect  is  quite  rare,  being  present 


50  The  Super  Race 

in  less  than  five  per  cent,  of  the  popula- 
tion ;  and  as  only  a  small  percentage  of  the 
population,  perhaps  two  or  threel  per  cent., 
is  above  the  average  in  ability,  more  than 
nine-tenths  of  the  people  remain  average 

—  shaped  by  their  environment;  capable 
of  good  or  of  evil,  according  as  the  good 
or  evil  forces  of  society  influence  their 
youth  and  early  maturity. 

The  eighteenth  century  philosophers 
had  embodied  the  same  conclusion  in  the 
doctrine  that  all  men  are  created  free  and 
equal.  Victor  Hugo,  in  the  first  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  based  most  of  his 
inspiring  novels  on  the  theory  that  in  every 
man  there  is  a  divine  spark  —  a  conscience 

—  which  will  be  developed  by  a  good  en- 
vironment or  crushed  and  blackened  by  a 
bad  one. 

Each  year  added  new  proofs  of  the 
theory  of  universal  capacity,  until  Ward 
was  able  to  write  his  Applied  Sociology , 
demonstrating  that  opportunity  is  the  key- 
note of  social  progress.^  For,  says  he, 
up  to  the  present  time  nine-tenths  of  the 

1  Lester  F.  V^ard,  Applied  Sociology,  pp,  zz^-zZi, 
Boston,  Ginn  &  Co.,  1906. 


The  Super  Race  51 

men,  and  ten-tenths  of  the  women  (nine- 
teen twentieths  of  society)  have  been  de- 
nied a  legitimate  opportunity  for  develop- 
ment. Grant  this  opportunity,  and  at 
once,  without  any  change  in  hereditary 
characteristics,  you  can  increase,  nineteen 
fold,  the  achievements  of  society. 

Ward's  estimate  may  be  or  may  not  be 
exactly  correct.  His  contention  that  uni- 
versalized opportunity  would  greatly  aug- 
ment social  achievement  is,  however,  fun- 
damentally sound.  Social  Adjustment 
aims,  through  the  shaping  social  institu- 
tions, to  provide  every  individlial  with  an 
opportunity  to  secure  a  strong  body,  a 
trained  mind,  an  aggressive  attitude,  the 
power  of  concentration,  and  the  vision  of 
a  goal  toward  which  he  is  working.^  In 
short,  the  object  of  Social  Adjustment  is 
the  provision  of  universal  opportunity. 

The  dark  unfathomed  caves  of  ocean 
bear  many  a  gem-  of  purest  ray  serene. 
Even  the  most  gifted  individual,  thrown 
into  an  adverse  environment,  will  either 

2  For  a  more  complete  statement  of  the  problem,  see 
Social  Adjustment,  Scott  Nearing,  New  York :  Macmil- 
lan  Company,  1911. 


52  The  Super  Race 

fail  utterly  to  develop  his  powers,  or  else 
will  develop  them  so  incompletely  that 
they  can  never  come  to  their  full  fruition. 
Thomas  A.  Edison  cast  away  on  an  island 
in  the  South  Pacific  would  be  useless  to  his 
fellows.  Abraham  Lincoln,  living  among 
the  Apache  Indians,  would  have  left  small 
impress  on  the  world.  A  sculptor,  to  be 
really  great,  must  go  to  Rome,  because  it 
is  in  Rome  that  the  great  works  of  sculp- 
tured art  are  to  be  found.  It  is  in  Rome, 
furthermore,  that  the  great  sculptors  work 
and  teach.  A  lawyer  can  scarcely  achieve 
distinction  while  practicing  in  a  backwoods 
county  court,  nor  can  a  surgeon  remain 
proficient  in  his  science  unless  he  keep  in 
constant  touch  with  the  world  of  surgery. 
'^  I  must  go  to  the  city,"  cried  a  woman 
with  an  unusual  voice.  *'  Here  in  the 
country  I  can  sing,  but  I  cannot  study  mu- 
sic." She  must,  of  necessity,  go  to  the 
city  because  in  the  city  alone  exists  the 
stimulus  and  the  example  which  are  neces- 
sary for  the  perfection  of  her  art. 

A  congenial  environment  is  necessary 
for*  the  perfection  of  any  hereditary  talent. 
Lester  F.  Ward  concludes,  after  an  ex- 


The  Super  Race  53 

haustive  analysis  of  self-made  men,  that 
such  men  are  the  exception.  That  they 
exist  he  must  admit,  but  that  their  abilities 
would  havq  come  to  a  much  more  complete 
development  in  a  congenial  environment 
he  clearly  demonstrates. 

The  rigorous  persecution  of  the  Middle 
Ages  eliminated  any  save  the  most  daring 
thinkers.  Men  of  science,  who  presumed 
to  assert  facts  in  contradiction  of  the  ac- 
cepted dogmas  of  the  Church,  were  ruth- 
lessly silenced,  hence  the  ages  were  very 
dark.  The  nineteenth  century,  on  the 
contrary,  through  its  cultivation  of  science 
and  scientific  attainments,  has  reaped  a 
harvest  of  scientific  achievement  unparal- 
leled in  the  history  of  the  world.  Men 
to-day  enter;  scientific  pursuits  for  the  same 
reason  that  they  formerly  entered  the  mili- 
tary service  —  because  every  emphasis  is 
laid  on  ^scientific  endeavor.  The  nine- 
teenth century  scientist  is  the  logical  out- 
come of  the  nineteenth  century  desires  for 
scientific  progress. 

The  environment  shapes  the  man.  Yet, 
equally,  does  the  man  shape  the  environ- 
ment.    A  high  standard  individual   may 


54  The  Super  Race 

be  handicapped  by  social  tradition,  but,  in 
like  manner,  progressive  social  institutions 
are  inconceivable  in  the  absence  of  high 
standard  men  and  women. 

The  institutions  of  a  society  —  its 
homes,  schools,  government,  industry  — 
are  created  by  the  past  and  shaped  by  the 
present.  Institutions  are  not  subjected  to 
sudden  changes,  yet  one  generation,  ani- 
mated by  the  effort  to  realize  a  high  ideal, 
may  reshape  the  social  structure.  Can 
one  conceive  of  a  paper  strewn  campus 
in  a  college  where  the  spirit  is  strong? 
Parisians  believe  in  beauty,  hence  Paris  is 
beautiful.  Social  institutions  combine 
the  achievements  of  the  past  with  the 
ethics  of  the  present. 

**  Let  me  see  where  you  live  and  I  will 
tell  you  what  you  are,''  is  a  true  saying. 
The  social  environment,  moldable  in  each 
generation,  is  an  accurate  index  to  the 
ideals  and  aspirations  of  the  generation  in 
which  It  exists. 


CHAPTER  IV 

EDUCATION  —  THE    SCIENCE    OF    INDIVID- 
UAL  DEVELOPMENT 

Eugenics  provides  the  hereditary  quali- 
ties of  the  Super  Man;  Social  Adjustment 
furnishes  the  environment  in  which  these 
qualities  are  to  develop ;  there  still  remains 
the  development  of  the  individual  through 
Education,  a  word  which  means,  for  our 
purposes,  all  phases  of  character  shaping 
from  birth-day  to  death-day. 

The  individual  has  been  rediscovered 
during  the  past  three  centuries.  He  was 
known  in  some  of  the  earlier  civilizations, 
but  during  the  Middle  Ages  the  place  that 
had  seen  him  knew  him  no  more.  He  was 
submerged  an  the  group  and  forced  to  sub- 
ordinate his  interests  to  the  demands  of 
group  welfare.  The  distinctive  work  of 
the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  has 
been  a  reversal  of  this  enforced  individual 
oblivion  and  the  formulation  of  a  demand 
55 


56  The  Super  Race 

for  individual  initiative  and  activity.  The 
individual,  pushed  forward  In  politics,  in 
religion,  and  in  commerce  has  freely  as- 
serted and  successfully  maintained  his  right 
to  consideration,  until  the  opportunities  of 
the  twentieth  century  free  citizen  far  ex- 
ceed those  of  the  convention-bound  citizen 
of  the  middle  ages.  The  twentieth  cen- 
tury citizen  is  free  because  he  makes  ef- 
ficient choices.  The  continuance  of  his 
freedom  depends  upon  the  continued  wis- 
dom of  his  choice. 

The  chief  objective  point  of  modern  en- 
deavor has  been  individual  freedom  of 
choice.  The  laissez-faire  doctrine  in  com- 
mercial relations,  democracy  in  politics, 
the  natural  philosophy  and  natural  theol- 
ogy of  the  eighteenth  century  are  all  ex- 
pressions of  a  belief  in  equality.  When 
men  are  made  free  to  choose,  they  are 
placed  on  a  basis  of  equality,  since  they 
have  a  like  opportunity  to  succeed  or  fail. 
The  man  who  chooses  rightly  wins  suc- 
cess —  the  man  who  chooses  wrongly  fails. 

Thus  the  freedom  to  choose  is  for  the 
average  man  a  right  of  inestimable  value, 
because  it  places  in  his  hands  the  oppor- 


The  Super  Race  57 

tunity  to  achieve.  Rights  do  not,  how- 
ever, come  alone.  The  freeman  is  bound 
in  his  choices  to  recognize  the  law  that 
rights  are  always  accompanied  by  duties. 

Each  right  is  accompanied  by  a  propor- 
tionate responsibility — -there  is  no  dinner 
without  its  dishwashing.  To  be  sure,  you 
may  shift  the  burden  of  dishwashing  to  the 
maid,  and  the  burden  of  voting  to  the 
"  other  fellow,"  but  the  responsibility  is 
none  the  less  present.  Garbage  is  still 
garbage,  even  when  thrown  into  the  well, 
and  your  responsibilities,  shifted  to  the 
maid  and  the  other  voter,  return  to  plague 
you  in  the  form  of  a  servant  problem  and 
of  vicious  politics.  Men  who  have  a  right 
to  choose  have  also  a  duty  to  fulfill,  and 
this  right  and  this  duty  are  inseparable. 

The  eighteenth  century  began  the  dis- 
covery of  the  individual  man;  the  nine- 
teenth century  —  at  least  the  latter  half  of 
it  —  was  /responsible  for  the  discovery  of 
the  individual  woman.  Even  to-day  in 
many  civilized  lands,  the  woman  is  merely 
an  appendage.  Men  innumerable  write  in 
the  hotel  register  '^  John  Edwards  and 
Wife,"   yet  if  the  *truth  were  told  they 


58  The  Super  Race 

should  often  write  '^  Jane  Edwards  and 
John  Edwards,"  and  perhaps  sometimes 
**  Jane  Edwardsi  and  husband." 

Western  civilization,  a  good  unthinking 
creature,  has  insisted  bravely  on  the  devel- 
opment of  the  individual  man,  while  largely 
overlooking  the  existence  of  the  individual 
woman;  yet  the  studies  of  heredity  show 
very  clearly  that  at  least  as  many  qualities 
are  inherited  from  the  female  as  from  the 
male.  Nay,  further,  since  the  female  is 
less  specialized,  the  distinctive  race  quali- 
ties are  inherited  from  her,  rather  than 
from  the  more  specialized  male.  In  short, 
the  Super  Man  will  have  a  mother  as  well 
as  a  father. 

The  fact  that  the  average  man  has  as 
many  female  as  he  had  male  ancestors  is 
very  frequently  overlooked.  lYet  it  is  a 
fact  that  inevitably  carries  with  it  the  im- 
putation, that  if  his  ancestors  were  thus 
equally  apportioned,  he  must  have  inher- 
ited his  qualities  from  both  sexes.  There- 
fore, in  the  production  of  the  Super  Man, 
the  qualities  of  the  woman  are  of  equal 
importance  with  the  qualities  of  the  man. 

The  individual  is  the  goal  and  Educa- 


The  Super  Race  59 

tion  the  means,  since  Education  is 
the  science  of  individual  development 
Through  Education,  we  shall  enable  the 
individual  to  live  completely.  But  what 
is  complete  life?  How  shall  we  compass 
or  define  it? 

Two  laws  are  laid  down  as  fundamental 
in  nature  —  the  laws  of  self  preservation 
and  of  self  perpetuation.  With  the  devel- 
opment of  society,  and  social  relations,  the 
individual  must  recognize  himself,  not  as 
an  individual  only,  but  likewise  as  a  unit 
in  a  social  group.  Hence,  for  him,  self 
preservation  and  self  perpetuation  neces- 
sarily Involve  group  preservation  and 
group  perpetuation.  His  code  of  life 
must  therefore  formulate  itself  In  this 
wlse^ — ■ 

THE  OBJECTS  OF 
ENDEAVOR 

Immediate  Ultimate 


iNDiviDUAi  Self  Expression     Super  Man 

Eugenics 
Social      Social  Adjustment     Super  Race 

Education 

I 

The  Individual,   for  self  preservation, 


6o  The  Super  Race 

demands  self  expression;  for  self  perpetua- 
tion he  demands  that  the  standard  of  his 
children  be  higher  than  his  own.  As  a 
member  of  the  social  group,  he  looks  to 
Eugenics,  Social  Adjustment,  and  Educa- 
tion as  the  immediate  means  of  raising 
social  standards,  and  the  ultimate  means 
of  providing  a  Super  Race. 

Such  are  the  abstract  ideals  —  how  may 
they  be  practically  applied?  How  shall 
the  individual  express,  through  Eugenics, 
Social  Adjustment,  and  Education  his  de- 
sire for  the  development  of  a  Super  Race? 

Do  you,  sir,  enjoy  living  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  vandals  and  thieves?  Well, 
hardly.  One  could  not  be  expected  to  take 
so  frivolous  a  view  of  life,  therefore  you 
will  in  self  defense  take  every  possible  pre- 
caution to  suppress  vandalism  and  thiev- 
ery? Never,  my  dear  sir,  never!  You 
must  take  every  possible  precaution  to  re- 
duce the  spirit  of  vandalism  and  of  thiev- 
ery. The  acts  are  in  themselves  unconse- 
quential  —  they  are  but  the  product  of  a 
diseased  mind  or  an  indifferent  training. 
The  spirit,  here  as  elsewhere,  is  all  im- 
portant. 


The  Super  Race  6i 

Are  you  a  scientist?  Do  you  admire 
Pasteur  and  Herbert  Spencer?  You  are 
a  **  practical ''  man  —  see  what  Edison  has 
done  for  you.  As  a  statesman,  you  revere 
Lincoln  and  Daniel  Webster.  You  can- 
not, as  an  artist,  overlook  the  portraits  of 
Rembrandt  or  the  water  scenes  of  Ruys- 
dael.  You  must  agree  with  me  that  these 
and  a  thousand  others  that  I  might  men- 
tion —  men  called  geniuses  by  their  con- 
temporaries or  their  descendants  —  have 
contributed  untold  worth  to  the  society  of 
which  they  were  a  part.  They  chose 
rightly.  They  are  looked  upon,  and  justly,* 
as  the  salt  of  the  earth.  You  admit  the 
value  of  geniuses,  in  civilization,  and  you 
would,  of  course,  do  anything  to  Increase 
their  number?  Then,  let  me  say  to  you 
that  the  first  thing  for  you  to  decide  is 
that  your  own  children  shall  be  neither 
vandals  nor  thieves.  The  second  thing 
for  you  to  decide  is  that  they  shall,  in  so 
far  as  you  are  able  to  determine  the  mat- 
ter, possess  all  of  your  good  qualities, 
coupled  with  the  good  qualities  which  you 
lack,  supplied  by  an  able  mate.  In  short, 
you  must  choose  your  life  partner  with  a 


62  The  Super  Race 

view  to  the  elimination  of  anti-social  tend- 
encies, on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other 
to  the  development  of  the  qualities  which 
distinguish  the  Super  Man. 

How  obvious  is  this  statement,  yet  how 
haphazard  has  been  the  production  of 
greatness.  Only  once  in  a  generation  does 
a  man,  in  his  choice  of  a  wife,  follow  the 
example  of  John  Newcomb.  In  a  truly 
scientific  spirit  he  enumerated  on  paper  the 
qualities  which  he  possessed;  placed  oppo- 
site them  the  qualities  in  which  he  was 
lacking ;  and  then  set  out  to  find  the  woman 
who  should  supply  his  deficiencies.  When 
he  had  located  his  future  helpmeet,  playing 
hymn  tunes  on  an  organ  in  a  little  red 
school  house,  and  upon  further  acquaint- 
ance, had  assured  himself  that  she  really 
possessed  the  needed  qualities,  he  married 
her,  with  the  determination  that  their  first 
child  should  be  a  great  mathematician. 
Their  first  child  was  Simon  Newcomb,  one 
of  the  leading  astronomers  of  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

John  Newcomb  was  a  village  school  mas- 
ter, and  his  wife  a  village  maiden,  but  in 
their    choice   they  combined   two   sets   o'f 


The  Super  Race  63 

qualities  which  would  inevitably  produce 
a  Super  Man.  John  Newcomb  was  a  pi- 
oneer eugenist.  He  chose  a  mate  with  the 
thought  of  the  future  foremost  in  his  mind. 

Too  often,  however,  the  men  of  parts 
follow  the  example  of  the  brilliant  pro- 
fessor who  married  a  *' social  butterfly." 
*^  Why  in  the  world  did  you  do  it?  "  asked 
an  old  friend.  **  Oh,  well,"  answered  the 
professor,  '^  I  felt  that  I  had  brains  enough 
for  both." 

True,  professor,  but  according  to  the 
Mendelian  law  of  heredity,  those  brains 
of  yours  will  be  halved  in  each  of  your  chil- 
dren, and  quartered  in  each  of  your  grand- 
children. Why  should  not  the  future  be 
at  least  as  brilliant  as  your  own  genera- 
tion? 

Human  marriage  is  ordinarily  a  hit  or 
miss  affair.  Men  and  women,  inspired  by 
the  loftiest  motives,  and  animated  in  most 
matters  by  supreme  good  sense,  not  infre- 
quently grope  blindly  toward  matrimony; 
often  marry  uncongenially;  and  finally 
bring  disgrace  upon  their  own  heads,  and 
misery  upon  their  families.  Stevenson, 
with    such    marriages    in    mind,     writes 


64  The  Super  Race 

to  the  average  prospective  bridegroom  — 
**  What!  you  have  had  one  life  to  man- 
age, and  have  failed  so  strangely,  and  now 
can  see  nothing  wiser  than  to  conjoin  with 
it  the  management  of  some  one  else's?  Be- 
cause you  have  been  unfaithful  in  a  very 
little,  you  propose  yourself  to  be  a  ruler 
over  ten  cities.  You  are  no  longer  content 
to  be  your  own  enemy;  you  must  be  your 
wife's  also.  God  made  you,  but  you  marry 
yourself;  no  one  is  responsible  but  you. 
You  have  eternally  missed  your  way  in  life, 
with  consequences  that  you  still  deplore, 
and  yet  you  masterfully  seize  your  wife's 
hand,  and  blindfold,  drag  her  after  you  to 
ruin.  And  it  is  your  wife,  you  observe, 
whom  you  select.  She,  whose  happiness 
you  most  desire,  you  choose  to  be  your  vic- 
tim. You  would  earnestly  warn  her  from 
a  tottering  bridge  or  bad  investment.  If 
she  were  to  marry  some  one  else,  how  you 
would  tremble  for  her  fate !  If  she  were 
only  your  sister  and  you  thought  half  as 
much  of  her,  how  doubtfully  would  you  en- 
trust her  future  to  a  man  no  better  than 
yourself!  "  ^ 
1  Robert  Louis  Stevenson^  Virginibus  Puerisque, 


The  Super  Race  65 

Here,  then,  lies  the  path  of  eugenic  ac- 
tivity for  the  individual  —  cleat,  straight, 
unmistakable.  In  the  first  place,  he  must 
never  transmit  to  the  future  any  defect. 
If  he  has  a  transmissible  defect,  he  must 
have  no  offspring.  This  seems  but  reason- 
able —  an  obligation  to  bring  no  unneces- 
sary misery  into  a  world  where  so  much 
already  exists.  But  the  individual  —  free 
to  choose  —  must  go  one  step  further,  and 
in  his  selection,  must  seek  a  mate  with  the 
qualities  which  are  complementary  to  his 
own. 

Looked  at  from  the  standpoint  of  soci- 
ety, there  is  no  single  choice  which  com- 
pares in  importance  to  the  choice  of  a  mate ; 
for  on  that  choice  depend  the  qualities 
which  this  generation  will  transmit  to  the 
next,  and  from  which  the  next  generation 
must  create  its  follower.  Furthermore, 
there  is  no  choice  which,  in  modern  society, 
is  more  completely  individual  —  more 
freed  from  social  interference,  than  the 
choice  of  a  life  mate.  The  man  in  choos- 
ing his  life  partner,  chooses  the  future. 
Civilization  hangs  expectant  on  his  de- 
cision.    The  Super  Race,  dim  and  indis- 


66  The  Super  Race 

tinct,  may  be  made  a  living  reality  by  a 
eugenic  choice  In  the  present  —  a  choice 
for  which  each  man  and  woman  who  mar- 
ries Is  In  part  responsible.  With  the  ad- 
vance of  woman's  emancipation,  with  the 
Increasing  range  of  her  activity,  comes  an 
ever  Increasing  opportunity  to  exercise 
such  a  choice.  She,  as  well  as  the  man, 
may  now  assist  In  the  determination  of 
the  future.  She  as  well  as  the  man  may 
now  be  held  accountable  for  the  non-ap- 
pearance of  the  Super  Race. 

Does  the  burden  of  Eugenic  Choice 
rest  heavily  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  in- 
dividual? Does  he  hesitate  to  assume 
the  responsibility  of  the  future  race  ?  The 
burden  of  shaping  Social  Adjustments  Is 
no  less  onerous. 

Briefly,  then,  what  changes  may  the  in- 
dividual make  in  institutions  to  develop 
the  qualities  of  the  Super  Man?  The 
social  Institutions  with  which  the  aver- 
age man  comesi  Into  the  most  intimate  con- 
tact are : 

1.  The  Home. 

2.  The  School. 

3.  The  Government. 


The  Super  Race  67 

The  home  as  an  institution  must  provide 
for  the  Super  Man  enough  food,  clothing 
and  shelter  to  guarantee  him  a  good  phy- 
sique; enough  training  in  cooperation  and 
mutual  helpfulness  to  give  him  the  vision 
of  a  Super  Race;  and  a  supply  of  enthusi- 
asm sufficient  to  enable  him  to  work  with 
increasing  energy  for  the  fulfillment  of 
those  things  in  which'he  believes.  In  order 
that  the  home  may  supply  these  things, 
it  must  have  an  income  sufficient  to  provide 
all  of  the  necessaries  and  some  of  the  com- 
forts of  life.  It  must  further  be  domi- 
nated by  a  spirit  of  sympathetic  democ- 
racy. 

While  the  present  system  of  wealth  dis- 
tribution is  so  grotesquely  unscientific  that 
men  are  forced  to  rear  families  on  incomes 
that  will  not  provide  the  necessaries,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  comforts,  of  life,  no  true 
home  can  be  established  nor  can  a  Super 
Race  be  produced.  If  the  child  is  an  asset 
to  the  state,  the  state  should  support  the 
child,  guaranteeing  to  it  an  income  suf- 
ficient to  provide  for  its  material  welfare. 

Why  prate  of  home  virtue?  Why  dis- 
course learnedly  on  the  possibilities  of  a  de- 


68  The  Super  Race 

veloped  manhood  to  a  father  earning  nine 
dollars  a  week?  If  you  can  guarantee 
such  a  man  an  income  of  three  dollars  a 
week  for  each  child,  in  addition  to  the  nine 
dollars  for  his  wife  and  himself,  you  may 
well  air  your  views  regarding  a  Super  Race ; 
but  until  your  lowest  income  is  high  enough 
to  guarantee  the  necessaries  of  life  to  a 
family  of  five;  or  until  the  state  guarantees 
an  income  to  each  child  in  its  early  life, 
'*  You  may  as  well  go  stand  upon  the  beach 
and  bid  the  main  flood  bate  his  usual 
height,"  as  to  demand  that  a  man,  working 
for  starvation  wages,  provide  a  home  in 
which  Super  Men  can  be  reared. 

When  income  has  been  provided;  when 
there  is  food  for  every  mouth,  warm  cloth- 
ing for  every  back,  enough  fuel  for  winter, 
and  a  few  pennies  each  week  for  recrea- 
tion, then  indeed  you  may  begin  to  speak  in 
terms  of  social  improvement  Then,  and 
then  only,  you  may  tell  the  father  and  the 
mother  that  upon  their  efforts  during  the 
first  seven  years  of  their  children's  lives 
depends  the  attitude  which  those  children 
will  assume  when  they  go  out  into  the 
world;  that  the  home  in  which  tyranny  is 


The  Super  Race  69 

unknown,  in  which  the  family  rules  the 
family,  will  produce  the  noblest  citizensi 
for  the  noblest  state;  that  the  home  is  still 
the  most  fundamental  institution  in  civiliza- 
tion, the  conservator  of  our  ideals,  and 
visions  of  the  better  things  that  are  to  come 
in  the  future  —  these  things  you  may  say, 
emphasizing  the  fact,  that  without  a  well 
rounded  home-training  in  youth,  even  the 
noblest  talents  cannot  come  to  their  full 
fruition. 

The  school  is  a  specialized  form  of 
home.  In  early  days,  when  life  was  sim- 
ple, and  specialization  was  unknown,  edu- 
cation was  given  almost  wholly  in  the 
home;  but  with  the  growth  of  specialized 
tasks,  the  home  could  no  longer  fulfill  its 
function  as  educator  and  the  school  was 
introduced.  Education,  whether  given  in 
the  home  or  in  the  school,  has  as  its  ob- 
ject a  complete  life.  The  purpose  of  edu- 
cation is  to  enable  the  pupil  to  live  com- 
pletely —  to  be  a  rounded  being,  in  what- 
ever station;  he  may  be  called  upon  to  fill. 

Would  you  mold  the  school  to  fit  the 
needs  of  the  children?  Then,  the  system 
of  education  must  be  so  shaped  that  chil- 


70  The  Super  Race 

dren  are  prepared  to  live  their  lives  com- 
pletely. They  must  understand  them- 
selves. *'  Know  thyself  "  is  a  command 
worthy  of  their  attention.  The  child's 
body,  in  the  period  of  change  from  child- 
hood to  adulthood,  is  an  organism  of  the 
most  delicate  nature,  barely  reaching  ad- 
justment under  the  most  auspicious  condi- 
tions, and  more  than  frequently  failing 
signally  from  a  lack  of  knowledge,  or  from 
the  absence  of  sympathetic  understanding. 
The  child  — -  the  father  of  the  man  — 
must  be  taught  to  appreciate  the  human 
machine  of  which  he  is  given  charge.  It  is 
in  the  school,  with  its  corps  of  specialists, 
that  this  work  can  be  most  effectively  done. 
Then,  one  by  one,  the  school  may  take 
up  and  foster  the  qualities  of  the  Super 
Man.  Physique  must  come  first.  It  is 
blatant  mockery  to  speak  of  educating 
minds  that  dwell  in  ansemic  bodies. 
Every  boy  and  girl  has  a  right  to  a  strong, 
well  knit  frame,  and  the  school  must  teach 
the  best  methods  of  securing  it.  Mental 
grasp  —  the  power  to  see  and  judge  a  situ- 
ation or  combination  of  facts,  may  also 
come   through  the   school.     In   fact,   the 


The  Super  Race  71 

school  course,  as  at  present  organized, 
aims  to  secure  that  and  little  else.  As  the 
science  of  education  advances,  the  same 
material  which  now  comprises  the  entire 
course  will  be  taught  in  less  time  and  in 
wiser  ways,  so  that  the  child  shall  be  free 
to  learn  some  of  those  other  things  so  im- 
portant to  his  souFs  welfare.  Aggressive- 
ness and  concentration  are  methods  rather 
than  ends,  and  can  be  made  a  part  of  every 
game,  every  competition,  and  every  study, 
so  that  the  child  absorbs  them  as  he  ab- 
sorbs the  atmosphere,  without  knowing 
that  they  become  a  part  of  his  being. 
Whether  the  school  can  instill  sympathy 
and  inspire  vision  is  a  question  that  the 
future  alone  must  decide.  Both  may  be 
given  by  individual  teachers,  and  both  may 
be  possible  to  the  school,  though,  if  the 
home  is  doing  its  work,  these  things  will 
come  more  effectively  there  than  through 
the  school.  Most  or  all  of  the  essential 
qualities  of  the  Super  Man  can  and  will 
come  through  a  well  organized  arid  prop- 
erly directed  educational  system. 

The   government  —  providing  the  ma- 
chinery of  state  administration,  furnishing 


72  The  Super  Race 

the  school,  the  playground,  and  the  library; 
affording  an  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of 
citizenship  and  the  expression  of  those  ad- 
vancing ideas  which  must  gradually  re- 
mold the  social  institutions  of  each  age  in 
response  to  the  demands  of  the  new  genera- 
tion —  affords  one  of  the  most  potent 
forces  for  the  development  of  the  Super 
Man. 

The  school  is  the  big  home ;  the  govern- 
ment is  the  big  school.  The  child  leaves 
the  home,  and  enters  the  school ;  leaves  the 
school  and  enters  the  state.  In  the  home 
hd  is  acted  upon;  in  the  school  he,  himself, 
begins  to  act;  but  in  the  government  he  is 
the  sole  actor  —  he  is  the  state.  A  home 
must  be  higher  than  the  children ;  the  school 
must  be  more  advanced  than  the  pupils; 
but  the  state  reflects  exactly  the  character 
of  its  citizens.  It  is  in  the  state  that  the 
Super  Man,  crystallizing  his  convictions 
and  beliefs  into  the  form  of  legislative 
enactments,  must  prepare  the  way  for  the 
Super  Race. 

The  Super  Race  is  the  produce  of  hered- 
ity, of  social  environment,  and  of  individ- 
ual  development.     Heredity  supplies   the 


The  Super  Race  73 

raw  material  —  the  individual  human  be- 
ing, while,  education  and  social  environ- 
ment, operating  upon  this  raw  stuff,  de- 
^  termine  the  course  of  its  development. 
Steel  is  not  made  from  bee's  wax,  nor  is 
the  Super  Man  created  out  of  a  defective 
heredity.  In  like  manner,  since  those 
who  are  in  Rome  do  as  the  Romans  do, 
the  raw  material,  no  matter  what  its  qual- 
ity, is  shaped  by  its  surroundings.  The 
old  saying  **  as  the  twig  is  bent,  the  tree's 
inclined,"  should  be  modified  in  this  one 
particular  —  the  force  which  bends  the 
twig  must  continue  in  the  tree,  else  the 
latter  will  turn  and  grow  toward  the  sky. 

The  stock  of  the  Super  Man  will  be  se- 
cured by  the  mating  of  persons  possessing 
the  Super-Race  qualities;  yet,  reared  in  an 
unfavorable  environment,  these  qualities 
cannot  produce  the  highest  result. 

Neither  biologic  nor  social  forces  are 
alone  adequate  to  develop  the  Super  Race. 
Physique,  mental  capacity,  aggressiveness, 
concentration,  sympathy  and  vision  are  the 
products  of  heredity,  social  environment 
and  training.  The  system  of  human 
mating  must  be  perfected  and  the  status  of 


74  The  Super  Race 

social  institutions  must  be  raised  in  order 
that  the  individuals  produced  in  each  gen- 
eration may  attain  an  additional  increment 
of  the  qualities  which  will,  in  the  end,  pro- 
duce the  Super  Race. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  AMERICAN  OPPORTU.NITY 

Here^  in  brief  compass,  are  laid  down  the 
general  principles  upon  which  a  nation  must 
rely  for  the  raising  of  its  standard  of  hu- 
man excellence.  In  general,  we  are  con- 
vinced that  the  Super  Race  is  possible. 
Specifically  —  and  here  is  the  next  point 
—  there  are  more  possibilities  for  the  de- 
velopment of  the  Super  Race  in  the  United 
States  to-day  than  there  have  been  in  any 
nation  of  the  past;  or  than  there  are  in  any 
nation  of  the  present.  The  Super  Race 
is  America's  distinctive  opportunity. 

The  factors  which  may  play  so  signifi- 
cant a  part  ini  establishing  a  Super  Race  in 
the  United  States  are  here  set  down  in  an 
order  which  permits  of  sequential  treat- 
ment — » 

1.  Natural  resources. 

2.  The  stock  of  the  dominant  races. 

3.  Leisure. 

75 


76  The  Super  Race 

4.  The  emancipation  of  women. 

5.  The  abandonment  of  war. 

6.  A  knowledge  of  race  making. 

7.  A  knowledge  of  Social  Adjust- 

ment. 

8.  A    widespread    educational    ma- 

chinery. 

Natural  resources  are  an  indispensable 
element  in]  national  progress.  A  congenial 
climate  is  a  pre-requisite  to  social  develop- 
ment. No  permanently  successful  civili- 
zation can  be  erected  on  the  shores  of  Hud- 
son Bay,  or  in  the  torrid  heat  of  the  Ama- 
zon Valley.  The  temperate  zones,  with 
their  variable  climate,  and  their  wide 
range  of  vegetable  products,  seem  to  pro- 
vide the  foundation  for  the  successful  civ- 
ilizations of  the  immediate  future.  No 
less  necessary  to  civilization  are  harbors 
for  the  maintenance  of  commerce;  and  an 
abundance  of  minerals,  the  sinews  of  indus- 
try; and  most  important  of  all,  fertile  ag- 
ricultural land. 

In  its  possession  of  these  natural  re- 
sources, the  United  States  is  unexcelled. 
Its  climate,  while  generally  temperate, 
varies  sufficiently  to  give  an  excellent  range 


The  Super  Race  77 

of  products;  harbors  and  rivers  are  abun- 
dant; forests  and  minerals  are  scattered 
everywhere;  and  the  agricultural  land, 
rich  and  well  watered,  is  as  extensive  and 
as  potentially  productive  as  any  equivalent 
area  in  the  world.  So  far  as  natural  re- 
sources provide  a  basis  for  a  Super  Race, 
the  United  States  occupies  a  position  of 
almost  unique  prominence. 

The  stock  of  the  dominant  races  may  or 
may  not  be  a  cant  phrase.  Notwithstand- 
ing the  effective  work  done  by  Ripley  in  his 
Races  of  Europe ^^  an  impression  still 
prevails  that  certain  races  are,  from  their 
racial  characteristics,  specially  fitted  to 
dominate  others.  Woodruff,  in  his  Ex- 
pansion  of  Races,^  takes  this  view,  strongly 
urging  the  claim  of  the  northwest- 
ern European  to  the  distinction  of 
world  ruler.  Whether  race  be  a  matter  of 
supreme  or  of  little  concern,  in  determin- 
ing the  development  of  a  Super  Race,  the 
United    States    possesses     an    admirable 


iWm.  Z.  Ripley,  Races  of  Europe.  N.  Y.,  D.  Ap- 
pleton  &  Co.,  1899. 

2  C.  E.  Woodruff,  The  Expansion  of  Races,  N.  Y., 
Rebman,   1909. 


78  The  Super  Race 

blending  of  the  western  European  peoples 
who  now  occupy  the  dominant  position  in 
the  commercial  and  military  affairs  of  the 
world.  If  racial  stock  be  a  matter  of  no 
importance,  it  requires  no  emphasis;  if,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  be  a  significant  factor  in 
the  creation  of  the  Super  Race,  then  the 
United  States  holds  an  enviable  position 
in  its  racial  qualities. 

Thus  the  raw  materials  of  nation  build- 
ing—  the  natural  resources  and  the  racial 
qualities,  are  possessed  by  the  United 
States  in  generous  abundance.  Has  our 
use  of  them  tended  toward  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Super  Race? 

Leisure  is  an  opportunity  for  the  pursuit 
of  a  congenial  avocation.  It;  must  be  care- 
fully differentiated  from  the  idleness  with 
which  it  is  so  often  considered  synonymous. 
Satan  still  finds  mischief  for  idle  hands. 
The  man  who  idles  in  leisure  time  is  as 
likely  now  as  ever  in  the  past  to  find  him- 
self breaking  several  of  the  command- 
ments. Leisure  merely  provides  an  oppor- 
tunity for  free  choice.  Unwisely  used,  it 
leads  to  individual  dissipation  and  social 
degeneracy.     Wisely    employed,    it    is    a 


The  Super  Race  79 

most  important  means  for  the  promotion 
of  social  progress. 

Most  of  the  great  things  of  the  world 
have  been  done  in  leisure  time.  A  poet 
cannot  create,  nor  can  a  mechanic  devise,  if 
'  he  is  forced  during  twelve  hours  each  day 
to  struggle  for  the  bare  necessities  of  life. 
A  study  of  the  lives  of  those  who  have 
made  notable  achievements  in  art,  science, 
literature,  and  diplomacy  shows  that  they 
were  free,  for  the  most  part,  from  the 
bread  and  butter  struggle.  They  had  es- 
tates, they  were  the  recipients  of  pensions, 
but  they  did  not  submit  to  the  soul- 
destroying  monotony  of  repeating  the  same 
task  endlessly  through  the  long  reaches  of 
a  twelve  hour  day. 

Primitive  society  demands  the  service 
of  even  its  immature  members.  Children 
are  adults  before  their  childhood  is  well 
begun.  Civilization,  recognizing  the  pos- 
sibility of  self  preservation  through  length- 
ened youth,  has  said  to  the  child  "  Play." 

Long  youth  means  long  life.  Play  time 
—  leisure  —  for  the  youth  is  the  bone  and 
sinew  of  a  high  standard  maturity.  Lei- 
sure in  youth  for  play,  leisure  in  mature 


8o  The  Super  Race 

life  for  reflection  and  creation  —  these  are 
two  of  the  most  precious  gifts  of  civiliza- 
tion to  social  progress. 

The  United  States  has  led  the  nations 
in  providing  opportunity  for  leisure  time. 
Labor  saving  devices  have  been  brought 
to  a  higher  perfection  there  than  in  any 
other  part  of  the  world.  Nowhere  are 
children  kept  longer  from  assuming  the  re- 
sponsibilities of  adult  life;  in  few  countries 
is  the  workday  shorter  for  adults. 

Probably  no  other  people  in  the  world 
can  supply  themselves  with  the  necessaries 
of  life  in  so  short  a  working  time  as  can 
the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States.  If 
every  able  bodied  adult  engaged  for  five 
hours  each  day  in  gainful  activity,  enough 
economic  goods  could  be  created  to  provide 
all  the  necessaries  and  many  of  the  com- 
forts of  life.  The  leisure  obtained 
through  American  industry,  if  rightly  di- 
rected, may  provide  for  every  child  born  a 
thorough  education  —  an  ample  opportu- 
nity to  express  the  qualities  which  are  la- 
tent in  him  —  and  a  thorough  preparation 
for  life. 

The  emancipation  of  women  is  another 


The  Super  Race  8i 

force  which  may  be  directed  toward  the 
improvement  of  race  qualities.  Women 
bear  the  race  in  their  bodies;  at  least  half 
of  the  qualities  of  the  offspring  are  inher- 
ited from  them;  as  mothers,  they  educate 
the  children  during  the  first  six  years  of 
their  lives,  and  then,  as  school  teachers 
and  mothers  they  play  the  leading  part  in 
education  until  the  children  reach  the  age 
of  twelve  or  fourteen.  The  youth  of  the 
race  is  in  women's  keeping.  They  shape 
the  child  clay.  The  twig  is  bent,  the  tree 
is  inclined  by  women's  hands. 

The  emancipation  of  woman  means  her 
individualization.  Both  in  primitive  cus- 
tom arid  in  early  law  her  individuality  is 
merged  in  that  of  the  man.  *'  Wives," 
wrote  Paul,  ''  be  obedient  unto  your  hus- 
bands, for  this  is  the  law."  Mohammedan 
women  wear  veils  that  they  may  not  be 
seen;  Chinese  women  bind  their  feet  that 
they  may  not  escape;  the  women  of  conti- 
nental Europe  spend  their  lives  in  minister- 
ing to  the  comfort  of  their  liege  lords. 
They  are  dependent  —  almost  abject. 
From  such  a  sowing,  what  must  be  the 
reaping?    Into  the  hands  of  these  subject 


82  The  Super  Race 

creatures,  men  have  committed  the  train- 
ing of  their  sons. 

Can  a  corrupt  tree  bring  forth  good 
fruit?  If  women  are  inferior  to  men,  can 
they  be  worthy  to  train  their  future  su- 
periors—  their  sons?  If  they  are  of  a 
lower  mentality  than  men,  how  is  it  that, 
in  the  school  as  well  as  in  the  home,  men 
have  given  into  their  hands  the  power  to 
shape  the  destinies  of  the  race? 

Would  you  have  your  sons  trained  by  a 
free  man  or  by  a  slave?  Do  noble  civic 
ideals  flow  from  a  citizen  of  a  free  com- 
monwealth, or  from  the  subjects  of  a  des- 
pot? Only  the  woman  who  is  a  human 
being,  with  power  and  freedom  to  choose, 
may  teach  the  son  of  a  free  man.  Eman- 
cipation has  given  to  women  the  power  of 
choice. 

The  women  of  America  have  been  par- 
tially emancipated.  In  some  states,  they 
may  vote,  sue  for  divorce,  collect  their 
own  wages,  hold  property,  and  transact 
business.  Everywhere  they  are  filling  the 
high  schools  and  colleges;  participating  in 
industry  and  entering  the  professions. 
American  women  are  independent  beings 


The  Super  Race  83 

—  distinctive  units  in  a  great  organic  so- 
ciety. 

In  so  far  as  the  qualities  of  the  Super 
Man  are  developed  and  perfected  by  the 
teachings  of  women,  they  will  be  more 
effectually  rounded  by  the  emancipated 
woman  than  by  the  serf.  The  mothers  of 
America  are  prepared  to  teach  their  sons 
and  daughters  because  they  have  been 
taught  to  think  the  noblest  thoughts  and 
do  the  strongest  things. 

The  abandonment  of  war  removes  one 
of  the  most  destructive  forces  of  the  past, 
because  war  has  always  tended  to  eliminate 
the  best  of  every  race.  In  the  flower  of 
their  manhood,  the  noblest  died  on  the  field 
of  battle  —  their  lives  uncompleted;  their 
tasks  unfinished  —  leaving,  perhaps,  no 
offspring  to  bear  their  qualities  in  the  suc- 
ceeding generation.  Although  the  law  of 
nature  is  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  *'  In  the 
red  field  of  human  history  the  natural  proc- 
ess of  selection  is  often  reversed."  ^  The 
best  perish  in  war,  leaving  the  less  fit  to 
carry  forward  the  affairs  of  state,  and  to 

3  D.  S.  Jordan,  The  Human  Harvest,  p.  54.    Boston, 
American   Unitarian   Association,    1907. 


84  The  Super  Race 

propagate.  '*  The  man  who  is  left  holds 
in  his  grasp  the  history  of  the  future,"  ^ 
and  if,  as  is  frequently  the  case,  he  is  the 
one  least  fitted  to  survive,  the  race  is  con- 
stantly breeding  from  the  unfit  rather  than 
from  the  fit.  Where  the  human  harvest 
is  bad,  the  nation  must  perish.  So  long  as 
war  persisted,  so  long  as  the  best  left  their 
bones  on  the  battle  field,  while  the  worst 
left  their  descendants  to  man  the  state,  a 
bad  human  harvest  was  inevitable.  War 
ate  into  the  heart  of  national  vitality  by 
destroying  the  nation's  best  blood. 

War,  however,  has  practically  ceased. 
The  movement  for  peace,  in  which  the 
United  States,  both  by  precept  and  prac- 
tice. Is  a  leader,  stands  as  one  of  the  signal 
achievements  of  the  new  -century.  The 
abandonment  of  war  has  laid  a  basis  for 
the  Super  Race  by  permitting  the  most  fit 
to  live  and  to  hand  on  their  special  quali- 
ties to  coming  generations. 

In  the  United  States,  as  elsewhere  in  the 
civilized  world,  the  science  of  race  making 
has  recently  undergone  great  development. 
While  the  movement  began  in  England,  it 

^Ibid,  p.  48. 


The  Super  Race  85 

has  spread  rapidly,  until  at  the  present 
time  its  significance  is  universally  recog- 
nized by  scientists.  The  principles  of  ar- 
tificial selection  have  been  applied  in  the 
creation  of  vegetable  and  animal  prodigies ; 
the  knowledge  of  biologic  and  selective 
principles  is  wide-spread;  and  the  educated 
men  and  women  of  the  United  States  gen- 
erally understand  the  potency  of  these 
forces. 

Important  steps  have  already  been  taken 
to  prevent  the  propagation  of  the  unfit. 
Born  criminals  are  in  some  states  de- 
prived of  the  power  of  reproduction;  in 
most  of  the  states,  the  marriage  of  dis- 
eased persons  is  prohibited;  here  and  there 
attempts  have  been  made  to  prohibit  the 
marriage  of  any  suffering  from  a  trans- 
missible defect.  On  the  other  hand,  men- 
tally defective  persons  are  being  segregated 
in  institutions  —  guarded  against  the  dan- 
gers which  beset  the  men  and  particularly 
the  women  of  weak  mind.  During  the 
past  two  decades  great  strides  have  been 
made  in  educating  the  American  public  to 
a  higher  standard  of  health  and  efficiency. 
Though  the  science  of  race  making,  as  such. 


86  The  Super  Race 

has  not  been  given  a  prominent  place  in 
public  discussion,  the  principles  on  which 
race  making  is  based  have  formed  an  im- 
portant element  in  public  education.  The 
desire  to  make  a  Super  Race  in  America 
is  as  yet  in  its  infancy,  but  the  ground  has 
been  thoroughly  prepared,  and  a  founda- 
tion laid  upon  which  such  a  super-structure 
of  desire  for  race  making  can  be  speedily 
and  effectively  erected. 

Meanwhile,  the  science  of  Social  Adjust- 
ment has  occupied  the  most  prominent 
place  in  American  thought.  If  the  Amer- 
ican people  have  under-emphasized  Euge- 
nics they  have  over-emphasized  Social  Ad- 
justment. From  ocean  to  ocean,  the  coun- 
try has  been  swept,  during  the  past  three 
decades,  by  a  whirlwind  of  legislation  di- 
rected toward  the  adjustment  of  social  in- 
stitutions to  human  needs.  Trusts,  fac- 
tories, food,  railroads,  liquor  selling  and 
a  hundred  other  subjects  have  been  kept 
in  the  foreground  of  public  attention. 
The  American  people  might  almost  plead 
guilty  to  adjustment  madness. 

From  the  foundation  of  the  earliest  col- 
onies, the  basis,  in  theory  at  least,  was  laid 


The  Super  Race  87 

for  the  development  of  the  individual. 
The  colonists  believed  in  the  worth-while- 
ness  of  men,  they  lived  in  an  age  of  natural 
philosophy;  they  were  the  products  of  an 
effort  to  secure  religious  and  political  free- 
dom; they  therefore  emphasized  the  indi- 
vidual conscience,  and  the  right  of  the  in- 
dividual to  think  and  act  for  himself. 
Each  individual  was  a  man,  to  be  so  re- 
garded, and  so  honored.  Their  new  life 
was  a  hard  one.  Nature  presented  an  as- 
pect on  the  rocky,  untilled  New  England 
coast  different  from  that  in  the  civilized 
countries  of  the  old  world.  There  was 
but  one  way  to  meet  these  new  conditions 
—  the  individual  must  carve  out  his  own 
future. 

Throughout  the  United  States,  the 
watchword  of  the  people  has  been  oppor- 
tunity. Without  opportunity,  the  people 
perish  —  hence  opportunity  must  stand 
waiting  for  each  succeed^ing  generation. 
In  the  turmoil  of  commercial  life,  in  the 
ebb  and  flow  of  the  immigrant'  tide,  the  re- 
ality has  been  frequently  lost;  yet  the  ideal 
of  opportunity  remains  as  firmly  rooted  as 
ever. 


88  The  Super  Race 

The  worth-whileness  of  men,  the  social 
control  of  the  environment,  and  a  free  op- 
portunity for  the  development  of  the  indi- 
vidual constitute  the  basis  for  social  ad- 
vance in  the  United  States.  The  ideal  is 
firmly  rooted;  the  possibility  of  its  realiza- 
tion is  an  everpresent  reality. 

With  a  boundless  wealth  of  natural  re- 
sources; bulwarked  by  the  stock  of  the 
dominant  races;  with  abundant  leisure; 
granting  freedom  and  individuality  to 
women;  foregoing  war;  cognizant  of  the 
principles  of  race  making;  Social  Adjust- 
ment and  of  Education,  the  American  na- 
tion is  thrown  into  the  foreground,  as  the 
land  for  the  development  of  the  Super 
Race.  The  American  people  have  within 
their  grasp  the  torch  of  social  progress. 
Can  they  carry  it  in  the  van,  lighting  the 
dark  caverns  of  the  future  ?  Can  they  de- 
velop a  race  of  men  who  shall  set  a  stan- 
dard for  the  world  —  men  of  physical  and 
mental  power,  efficient,  broadly  sympa- 
thetic, actuated  by  the  highest  ideals,  striv- 
ing toward  a  vison  of  human  nobleness? 

The  answer  rests  with  this  and  the  suc- 
ceeding generations.     Given  ten  talents  of 


The  Super  Race  89 

opportunity,  are  we  as  a  nation  worthy  to 
be  made  the  rulers  over  ten  cities?  Pro- 
vided with  the  raw  stuff  of  a  Super  Race, 
can  we  mold  it  into  **  A  mightier  race  than 
any  that  has  been?"  The  past  worked 
with  things:  the  present  works  with  men. 
''  We  stand  at  the  verge  of  a  state  of  cul- 
ture, which  will  bd  that  of  the  depths,  not, 
as  heretofore,  of  the  surface  alone;  a  stage 
which  will  not  be  merely  a  culture  through 
mankind,  but  a  culture  of  mankind.  For 
the  first  time  the  great  fashioners  of  cul- 
ture will  be  able  to  work  in  marble  instead 
of,  as  heretofore,  being  forced  to  work  in 
snow."  ^  Bulwarked  by  this  pregnant 
thought,  and  assured  by  Ruskin  that, 
''  There  is  as  yet  no  ascertained  limit  to 
the  noblesse  of  person  and  mind  which  the 
human  creature  may  attain,"  we  press  for- 
ward confidently,  advocating  and  practic- 
ing those  measures  which  will  create  the 
energy,  mental  grasp,  efficiency,  sympathy 
and  vision  of  the  Super  Man  and  the  Super 
Race. 

5  Ellen  Key,  Love  and  Marriage,  p.  53.     N.  Y.,  Put- 
nani)  1911. 


